Monday, September 24, 2018

ASEAN Rules Out Formal Meet With India In November

ASEAN Rules Out Formal Meet With India In November

As a result of a diplomatic kerfuffle, now PM Modi will have an informal breakfast meeting with ASEAN leaders in Singapore during the November 11-15 summit

by Indrani Bagchi

NEW DELHI: When India invited 10 ASEAN leaders for Republic Day, it did not reckon that ASEAN would refuse to hold a second summit with India in November. It now transpires when ASEAN holds its summits with China, Japan and other external partners in November, the India-ASEAN meeting will not be a formal summit as it is every year.

An obscure ASEAN rule mandates that the regional grouping cannot have two summits with an external partner twice in a single calendar year. Since the 10 ASEAN heads of government were in India for Republic Day and an accompanying summit in January, no formal summit was slotted in November with India. That would mean India would be part of the East Asia Summit but there won't be a formal summit with India.

When this was pointed out to India, New Delhi made its displeasure clear. Top MEA officials conveyed to the ASEAN leadership that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not go to Singapore if there was no India summit. Apart from how it would play in India and Asia, this would be handing a PR walkover to China. It would also look terrible if India were to absent itself from Singapore in November, particularly since US President Donald Trump is already skipping the summit.

As a result of a diplomatic kerfuffle, now PM Modi will have an informal breakfast meeting with ASEAN leaders in Singapore during the November 11-15 summit.

Sources said Singapore as the current chair of ASEAN was keen to enforce this rule and restrict summits "outside the region". Since Singapore is a particularly strong partner of India in the region, this became a rather knotty problem. Singapore pointed to Vietnam and Thailand, as outgoing and incoming country coordinators for India in ASEAN respectively, for not pointing this out to India in time. These countries in their turn criticised Singapore for enforcing a regulation that has been broken previously.

But this is Asia, where everybody is conscious of the importance of saving "face". The problem was referred to the ASEAN secretariat, leaving the officials to find a solution that was not tainted by politics. A solution was found with Indian officials, Preeti Saran, secretary (east), Suresh Reddy, India's permanent representative to ASEAN and Jawed Ashraf, India's envoy to Singapore at the forefront.

Modi will now meet ASEAN leaders for an "informal" breakfast meeting. Keen to make the most out of this meeting, India is now pushing for "outcomes", a favoured practice for all Modi summits. That remains under negotiation.